What Is Copyright Awareness?

There
is no standard definition for “Copyright Awareness”. However, some
critics have argued that awareness can only be defined in the light of
what is being manifested in all forms of perception, knowledge and
consciousness. In each expression, awareness is revealed as the ability
to perceive (perception), know (knowledge) or the state of being
conscious (consciousness).

Simply defined, awareness means you
aware of something. Let us say “I am aware of road accidents” it is
qualified as “Road Accident Awareness”. Similarly, when “I am aware of
copyright”, this also is “Copyright Awareness”. This means whenever
there is awareness of something, that thing becomes the qualifying
subject for awareness.

On this wise, copyright awareness is
knowing that copyright exists and having knowledge about it. It is the
state of having conscious knowledge about copyright in a perceived
manner. When users of copyright materials exhibit this sense of
awareness in an educational institution, it gives authors the
opportunity to enjoy the economic value of their works and motivates
their authorship.

Copyright awareness can be developed when
conscious efforts are made to bring it into fruition. For instance, when
copyright notices are displayed at various points where copyright
materials are mostly used.

The importance of copyright awareness
can be notice in its absence. That is to say that the absence of
copyright can be noticed when there is the problem of uncontrolled
copyright infringement activities such as illegal photocopying,
plagiarism and piracy within an academic setup.

Awareness in all
sphere of life is very challenging. In the same vein, Awareness of
Copyright Protection has also remained a globally controversial aspect
of copyright laws in respect of works eligible for copyright protection,
works not protected by copyright and authors’ protection under the
copyright protection. This, however, reveals that a lot of people have
little or no knowledge in this regard.

On the other hand,
Awareness of Copyright Infringement (ACI) can be said to be the
awareness that is created when people become aware, conscious, alert,
and responsive that unauthorised use of works that are copyrighted is
prohibited. Some scholers argued that before we can discuss what
constitutes Awareness of Copyright Infringement (ACI), it’s probably a
good idea to lay out what specifically are the rights that are granted by copyright
law that are likely to be infringed. For instance, in Ghana, according
to Bosumprah (2009), “copyright is infringed when a work protected by
copyright is used in any of the following ways without any permission
from the copyright owner:

Reproduction, duplication, extraction or importation into the country not for personal use but for commercial purposes.

Distribution of the work for sale in Ghana”.

This
is because a work exploited in the above mentioned manner may be
prejudicial to the honour or reputation of the author. This is why
section 41 of the Copyright Act, 2005 (Act 690) regards an act contrary
to the rights of an author as provided under sections 5 and 6 as
infringement of copyright. So, since the copyright owner has the
exclusive right to do all of those things (or to permit others to do
them), infringement can happen when someone does any of them without the
copyright owner’s permission (Davidson, 2010).

Reproduction
(as in copying a work) through photocopying, and this according to
Panethiere (2005), is one of the common ways of infringing copyright in
literary works.

Distributing (as in copies of the work) through piracy. According to
Panethiere (2005) this happens through unauthorised manufacturing and
selling of works in copyright – what Osman (2010) regarded as Counterfeitingor the creation or distribution of imitations of genuine works with the intent to deceive the public about their authenticity.

Use of someone else’s ideas or words, as in plagiarism, or using
someone else’s ideas or words without properly crediting the source,
Osman (2010).

Further to this, Panethiere (2005) argued that

“itis
not necessary for a whole work to be reproduced or for more than one
reproduction to be made for an infringement of copyright to occur. An
infringement of copyright occurs so long as a substantial portion of a
work is reproduced or other copyright use is made of it”.

This
is because what is a substantial portion is often subjected to a
qualitative rather than a quantitative test. It is the quality or
essence of what has been taken rather than the amount that is taken that
will often determine whether the portion taken is substantial or not.

REFERENCES

Bosumprah, B. (2009). The Rights and Responsibilities of the Media under the Copyright Law.

Davidson, J. (2010). What Constitutes Copyright Infringement and How Is It Decided? IP Registration and Enforcement Blog. An ongoing discussion of intellectual property and entertainment law issues.